Field
The disclosed and described technology relates generally to: (1) continuous health monitoring, and more specifically to methods and systems for continuous health monitoring using an analyte sensor, an analysis engine, and a knowledge base; (2) opto-enzymatic analyte sensors, such as, for example, layered glucose sensors; (3) systems and methods for adhering a medical device to the skin of a patient (4) devices and methods for transdermally inserting a sensor for a continuous glucose monitoring system; (5) optical communication between an opto-enzymatic sensor implanted in a patient and a controller adhered to a patient's skin; and (6) optical enzymatic analyte sensors, such as, for example, glucose sensors, using waveguides with separate emission and excitation paths to a target material.
Description of the Related Technology
Diabetes is a disease of insufficient blood glucose regulation. In non-diabetic people, the body's beta cells monitor glucose and deliver just the right amount of insulin on, for example, a minute-by-minute basis for tissues in the body to uptake the right amount of glucose, keeping blood glucose at healthy levels. In diabetic patients, this regulation primarily fails due to: 1) insufficient insulin production and secretion, and/or 2) a lack of normal sensitivity to insulin by the tissues of the body. Glucose sensors can be used to monitor glucose levels in diabetic patients allowing proper dosing of diabetic treatments, including, for example, insulin.
More generally, analyte tracking and monitoring enable improved monitoring, diagnosis, and treatment of diseases, including diabetes. Existing methods to measure, monitor, and track analyte levels, may include sampling a bodily fluid, preparing the sample for measurement, and estimating the analyte level in the sample. For example, a diabetic may prick a finger to obtain a blood sample to measure glucose in a glucose monitoring unit. Such existing methods may be painful, unpleasant or inconvenient for the patient, resulting in lower compliance with physician orders to, for example, take glucose readings at certain times each day or based on patient activity. Moreover, effective monitoring, diagnosis, and treatment may benefit from fusing multiple sensor readings that measure different aspects of a patient's state. Readings from one or more analyte sensors, as well as other bio sensor systems and/or activity sensors may be combined with past readings to determine results that characterize a patient's state, and may be used to monitor, diagnose, and treat a patient. For example, an alarm may be triggered if a patient's glucose level exceeds a threshold.
Accordingly, there is a need for analyte sensors (1) that do not require unpleasant blood draws or sample preparation if measurements are to be taken multiple times each day, (2) to be sufficiently selective, sensitive, and to provide repeatable and reproducible measurements, and (3) that are stable with low drift. There is also a need for controllers that may interrogate sensors based on protocols that define sampling timing, duration, and frequency.
Moreover, there is a need for analysis engines or tools (1) to analyze raw sensor readings and determine various results including, for example, sensor readings including analyte levels, trends, and alarms, (2) to incorporate past readings and patient history from a knowledge base, (3) to incorporate patient activity data, so that sensor readings may be correlated with and analyzed based on activities, enabling, for example, alarm conditions that vary with patient activity levels, and (4) to incorporate and fuse data from other bio sensors, which measure other aspects of a patient's condition.
Additionally, there is a need for analysis engines to (1) receive and accept orders and instructions from a physician, via a network, so that the orders and instructions may be converted to protocols that set sensor operating parameters and reading requirements (for example, a protocol to a controller that increases frequency or reduces the duration of a reading), (2) accept queries from physicians over a network, or from patients over a portable computing device (for example, a smart phone), for results of data that has been taken, or to modify a protocol, and (3) transmit results to a physician, as well as to a patient or caretaker.
Analyte sensors, such as glucose sensors, can produce a digital electronic signal that depends on the concentration of a specific chemical or set of chemicals (analyte) in bodily fluid or tissue. The sensor usually includes two main components, (1) a chemical or biological part that reacts or complexes with the analyte in question to form new chemical or biological products or changes in energy that can be detected by means of the second component and (2) a transducer. The first component (chemical or biological) can be said to act as a receptor/indicator for the analyte. For the second component, a variety of transduction methods can be used including, for example, electrochemical (such as potentiometric, amperometric, conductimetric, impedimetric), optical, calorimetric, and acoustic. After transduction, the signal is usually converted to an electronic digital signal that corresponds to a concentration of a particular analyte. Example analytes that can be measured using the embodiments of the inventions disclosed and described herein include, and are not limited to, glucose, galactose, fructose, lactose, peroxide, cholesterol, amino acids, alcohol, lactic acid, and mixtures of the foregoing.
The disclosed technology integrates an innovative analyte sensor, controlled by a controller, with an analysis engine that incorporates historical data and protocols from a knowledge base, bio sensor data from a biological sensor system, and activity data from an activity sensor system/database to generate results for measuring, monitoring and diagnosing a patient. The disclosed technology details embodiments of a laminate optical analyte sensor, methods for manufacturing it, systems and methods for inserting it, and systems and methods for adhering a medical device on the skin of a patient, such as a controller in communications with the sensor.